The following activities were chosen as a guide for teachers to present ‘race’ and human variation through a historical, cultural and biological lens. It begins with knowing yourself before you can know others in Activity 1- Uncovering Your Roots. This activity is designed for teachers alike in that we cannot adequately help others understand themselves if we don’t truly understand ourselves. Its’ focus is on the understanding the story of our ancestry and the process of the migration and settlement of those that came before us, more so than the exact detail of the family tree. Not all students will be able to trace their ancestry in great detail and it can be difficult. It is important to share with students that it is a learning activity to help them better be able to understand their own identity through their history and that their family stories will help guide them. Activity 2, Identity, Who You Are Matters, continues with this idea, in that connects their ancestry with their own identity and how history has played a part in it. Students will delve deeper into the complexity and intersectionality of identity. They will then learn about the role of “race” as a vital part of social identity before seeing it as a social and political construct in activities 3 and 4. Activity 3, Racism, A Social Construct, unpacks ‘race’ as a socio-political construct and not biologically meaningful. This is followed by our scientific understanding that the biological basis of human genetic variation proves that there are no biological features that are present in one ‘race’ group but not in others in Activity 4: Race is Not Biological. Activity 5, ‘Races’ and Phenotypes continues to drive the notion home in that students understand that ‘race’ is not a genetically meaningful way to group people.
Activity 1- Uncovering Your Roots (This lesson was adapted from http://www.pbs.org/latino-americans/media/docs/classroom/en-lesson-plan-roots-of-my-family-tree.pdf)
Overview: In this activity, students reflect on their own family’s arrival to the United States by filling in a family tree with as many generations as possible. Students research and fill in as much information as possible on the names and birthplaces of themselves, their parents, grandparents and so on. Next, they plot the names and birthplaces on a World Map. More important than establishing the exact detail of their family tree is the process of understanding the migration/settlement story of those that came before them. Students complete reflective questions.
Objectives: • Conduct personal historical/genealogical research • Plot birthplaces of ancestors on a map • Construct and identify their own “narratives of arrival” to the United States
Materials: • Handout: Family Tree Organizer and Reflection Questions • Handout: World Map • Atlas or online maps • Web access
Procedure: • Assign students to investigate their family trees as homework by asking elders or using other genealogy resources, public records, etc. Upon completing family research: As prompted in the Family Tree Organizer and Reflection Questions handout, students write down as much information as they can with regard to the names and birthplaces of their families: themselves, their parents, grandparents, etc. The goal is not to create a complete record of all family members; rather, it is to get a sense of the migration/settlement story behind each student below. • Next, they plot out the birthplace locations on the World Map. Or, if there is greater computer access, consider having the students complete the map work digitally using PowerPoint or Google Earth. • To conclude, have students complete the reflection questions in writing or discussion format, individually or in small groups. • Mount a large world map in the classroom, where the whole class can document their family trees and see how it intersects with their classmates.
Handout: Create a table entitled, Family Tree Organizer and write down as much information as you can about yourself and previous generations of your family. In the table, list the person, i.e., you, mother, father, maternal and paternal grandparents, maternal and paternal great grandparents and others. List their name, birth city/town, country and “story.”
Fill in what you can, even if you don’t have a complete name or exact location. Use the World Map to plot the birthplaces of various people in your family. Make a dot for each person using the following colors: RED = you, BLUE = parents, GREEN = grandparents, ORANGE = great grandparents, PURPLE = great-great grandparents and beyond.
What is one new thing you learned about your family history? • What was unexpected or surprising as you traced the family story and plotted it on a map? • Do you have a clear understanding of when your family arrived to the United States? If so, explain your family’s story of arrival. If not, list some of the questions you would ask to get a detailed understanding of your family’s story of arrival.21
Activity 2: Identity: Who you are Matters (This lesson was adapted from https://www.fredhutch.org/en/about/education-outreach/science-education-partnership/sep-curriculum/race-racism-genetics.html)
Overview: This lesson is intended to address questions like, Who am I? and What is race? Students will explore concepts associated with identity, such that identity has personal, social, and cultural dimensions. It is complex, multi-faceted, and may change over time and with different contexts. Students will also explore the ways in which their family narratives learned from lesson one is woven into their individual identity.
Objective: • Students will understand that identity is complex, changing, and intersectional. • Students’ identities are important and should be valued and celebrated. • Students discuss aspects of their avowed/ascribed identities with one another and share how these identities influence their experiences as students. • Students create “identity artifacts” that share important aspects of their identity.
Materials: • Cardstock (white, can cut in half if necessary) • Colored pencils/pens • Glue/tape • Rulers • Instant (polaroid) camera with film or student photos of themselves
Vocabulary: • Avowed identity - Aspects of your identity that you claim or hold for yourself, how you self-identify • Ascribed identity - Aspects of your identity that other assign to you based on assumptions about you • Identity - A complex and fluid concept encompasses the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one's sense of self • Intersectionality - A theory that examines how systems of power might impact individuals who are marginalized because of their socio-political identities, and how different types of discrimination combine to influence the experience of oppression.
Procedure Do Now: On a post-it have each student respond to the question, “What is identity?” • Share one definition of identity: The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing or person is definitively recognized or known. The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable a member of a group. • Distribute the personal identity wheel handout downloaded at: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/social-identity-wheel/ a. Give students 5-10 minutes to fill it out. • In pairs or small groups, have students share their personal identity wheels. Ask students to brainstorm and share what kinds of factors make up one’s identity. Personal (Ex: Are you a worrier? Are you very curious? What kinds of sports/foods/hobbies interest you?) • Social (Ex: Do you belong to a club or group? Do you have a certain type of job?) Cultural (Ex: Do you identify with a particular race/culture/ethnicity? Religion?) • Identities can also be thought of in terms of social markers of ethnicity, race, religion, socio-economic class, ability and gender. Some aspects of identity may shift over time and in different contexts. • Share the identities are also Intersectional: Identities should be considered holistically; there are many factors that can combine to impact identity. Distinguish between Avowed and Ascribed Identity. • Pair up. Sit facing each other. One person starts: How do I self-identify? (avowed) How do others tend to see me? (ascribed) How have these identities impacted my experience of school, science, and/or science classes? What was one experience where I really felt “seen” or “understood” for who I am? The other person just listens - no questions/talking. • Switch after the first person is done or when you hear the signal to switch. At the end, there will be a few minutes for open discussion with your partner. • Ask them to only share specific experiences about themselves unless their partner has explicitly okayed it to talk about them. • Students then use the identity wheel to create artifacts celebrating parts of their identity that they want to highlight. Identity Artifact Guidelines - Include your full name in a visible place on the front. You can include a photo but that is optional. Decorate the paper with words and pictures that represent aspects of your identity. Think about things that really make you who you are. • Create a circle and allow students to talk through parts of their artifact/share their finished product with others. “What part of your identity are you most proud of and why?”
Closure: As a class, discuss, “How has your identity influenced how you have experienced science classes?” 22 It is important to discuss how “race” impacts identity and how the idea of “race” came to be in order to understand what “race” is and what it is not. It is important to acknowledge that it is very real as a social and political idea and that racism is real, therefore impacting science and our lived experiences. This activity will then set the stage for the following lessons.
Handout
Identity factor
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Instilled by larger community (religious affiliation, ethnicity, national identity, etc.)
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Instilled by family and family heritage
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Genetically inherited
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Adopted from other individuals
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Self-Instilled
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Other (explain)
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Activity 3- Racism – A Social Construct (This lesson was adapted from https://www.fredhutch.org/en/about/education-outreach/science-education-partnership/sep-curriculum/race-racism-genetics.html)
Overview: In this lesson students will understand that race is a socio-political construct and not biologically meaningful. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not an important aspect of someone’s identity, the way others perceive them, or the way they experience life. Students will learn that there are different levels of racism; structural/systemic, personally-mediated, and internalized. This lesson will show students cognitive shortcuts arise because of their evolutionary survival value, but they are also influenced by cultural messages shaped by history and structural racism and that those natural processes lead to bias if they are paired with messages from the dominant culture that reinforce stereotypes.
Objectives: • Create their initial definitions of race, racism, and bias • Watch a video to learn about levels of racism • Discuss the biological origin of “automatic” thinking responses and how biases build off of that system by building off of cultural messages.
Materials: • Video found here- www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNhcY6fTyBM • Student Worksheets 1 and 2
Student Worksheet 1 - “Three Levels of Racism” Table
Fill out the first 2 columns when Dr. Jones gives the definitions/examples in the beginning. Come back and fill out the last column after she tells her story.
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Dr. Jones’ Definition
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Example
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Analogy in the Tale (described in terms of flower colors, soil, pots, etc.)
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Institutional Racism
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Personally Mediated Racism
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Internalized Racism
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Student Worksheet 2 - First Flower Story: Institutional Racism
Initial conditions: Below, label the boxes to show different types of soil (one rocky / poor soil and one potting soil / good, rich soil). It doesn’t matter which one you label which, but keep them the same throughout the sheet. YOU (The ‘gardener’) prefer RED over PINK flowers. Where are you going to plant seeds for the red flowers? The pink ones? Label the seeds planted for each box.
Soil |
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Seeds Planted (red or pink)
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Reflection Questions: 1) After 10 generations, what might the plants in each look like? Draw some flowers into the box. 2) In this story, how does the gardener react when they see what has happened to the red flowers and the pink flowers after 10 generations? 3)What kind of racism is this situation a model for? 4) What represents the “historical insult”? 5)What represents the “structural factors?” 6) What represents the “perpetuation of the inequity” (the inequity continuing)?
Second Flower Story: Personally-Mediated Racism - Draw your plants as above
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Box 1 |
Box 2 |
Soil
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Seeds Planted (red or pink)
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The gardener now plucks off the petals of the pink flowers, and plucks off any pink flowers that are growing in the good soil. Draw the red flowers as healthy and pink flowers after they have been damaged by the gardener.
Third Flower Story: Internalized Racism Reflection Questions: 1) In the third story, what are some of the “red flowers” thinking? 2)What are some of the “pink flowers” thinking? 3) If a bee tries to bring the pink flower pollen from another pink flower, how does the pink flower react? How does this story illustrate internalized racism? 4) Why is just saying “power to the pink” or having a workshop to help the gardener stop plucking the pink flowers not enough? What does Dr. Jones think needs to happen? 5)Who do you think is the “gardener” in the allegory?
Procedure: • Levels of Racism - the Gardener’s Tale- Show the Gardener’s Tale Allegory by Camara Jones. Allow students to revise their definitions - again in their own words. • Debrief with students after the video. Ask students the following questions related to the video: What are the three levels of racism that Dr. Jones describes? How does Dr. Jones respond to those who say that social class, rather than race, is it more important in determining differences in housing, education, wealth, etc.? What does Dr. Jones believe we have to do if we want to set things right in the garden? Ask students to write definitions of race, racism, and bias.
Crowdsource initial definitions from students. Ask students, “What do you see in common with these definitions”? Students should note that race is socio-political in nature and not defined by biology. Students should also note that racism involves not only prejudice, but systems of power/oppression. • Explain that next, students will focus some of the science related to human bias towards others and also the connections between bias and structural racism. Students will consider how biases are created and reinforced by systems of power/oppression. Gather student definitions of bias and share this one: Bias is a prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another (usually in a way that’s considered to be unfair). Biases may be held by an individual, group, or institution and can have negative or positive consequences. There are several types of biases: Conscious bias (also known as explicit bias) Unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias.) Implicit Bias is the process of associating stereotypes or attitudes towards categories of people without conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing. • Why are we all biased? Share the following with students: Bias is how our minds streamline thinking so we can quickly make sense of the world. Our brains are biologically designed to perform these quick judgments unconsciously.
Share the iceberg analogy: Our brain is like an iceberg with the conscious part of our brain being the smaller part of the iceberg that we can see above the water line, while the larger part of the iceberg, where our unconscious processing takes place, is below the water line. Research shows that the unconscious mind absorbs millions of bits of sensory information through the nervous system per second. Our conscious minds are processing only a small fraction of this information and doing so much more slowly and less efficiently than our unconscious minds. This means that we have a lot going on in our brains that we are not consciously aware of. • Often assumptions lead to bias. Ask students if people have ever made assumptions about them based on the way they look (race, gender, height, etc.) Associations that people make lead them to making assumptions.
Closure: Racial implicit bias rises out of, and reinforces structural racism. Our implicit biases are learned from our social and cultural world and build on a system that developed in our history.
We aren’t “off the hook” for our biases just because they have been internalized. We have to take responsibility for reflecting on our own thoughts/behaviors and also for working to disrupt the cycle of connection that keeps racism alive. Why do these ideas matter? How does your understanding connect to personal, community, or societal interests?22
Activity 4- Race is Not Biological (This lesson is adapted from teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/heredity/files/An%20Inventory%20of%20My%20Traits_student.pdf)
Overview: What is race? Is it a social construct-- an idea created by the minds of our society? Does it have a genetic basis? Many people in our society believe that people are divided into separate, biologically distinct groups called "races," distinguished by phenotypes such as skin color, facial features, hair color, and hair texture. Some individuals even assume that variation in these physical traits correlates with other innate differences, including intelligence, athletic aptitude, and criminal tendencies. Human beings vary in their physical appearance and genetic composition. Traits like skin color, eye shape and hair texture are influenced by genes we inherit from our parents. But do these patterns of human variation map onto "races"? Why do we classify races the way we do, using some traits, such as skin color, while ignoring others? Is it logically reasonable to say that members of one race/ethnicity are genetically more similar to each other than to members of another race? In this exploration of race/ethnicity and genetics, we will seek to answer these questions.
Objectives: • Race is not a genetically meaningful way to group people • Humans are more alike than they are different. • There is no “race gene” that can distinguish one “race” group from another. • There is more genetic variation within a “race” group than across groups.
Materials: • Handouts embedded within lesson plan • Access to internet
Procedure: Do you think that we are genetically more similar to someone of the same race/ethnicity compared to someone with a different race/ethnicity? Why/Why not In this activity, you will use your inventory of traits handout and compare some of the same traits with 5 members of your race, and 5 members of a different race. Record data. • The inventory of my traits survey can be found at teachgenetics.utah.edu or you can create a table that serves as a yes or no checklist that answers the following statements: I have detached earlobes, I can roll my tongue, I have dimples, I am right-handed, I have freckles, I have naturally curly hair, I have a cleft chin, I cross my left thumb over my right when I clasp my hands together, I can see the colors red and green, I have allergies, The hairline on my forehead is straight. •Then, Calculate Percent Difference between the number of traits shared in the same race vs a different race. Use your race as the control, and the other races as an experimental. • Finally, create a table in which you list the inventory of traits, and record whether or not the same race shares the trait or not and whether or not a different race shares that trait or not.
Closure: •Create a bar graph of the totals for each category (so 4 bars total). • Was your hypothesis supported or not? Explain by citing your data your percent difference and 2 other pieces of data. •Come up with a plausible explanation for the results you got in activity 1. •Make sure you use appropriate terminology.
Activity 5 –Sorting people into races based on phenotype (This lesson is adapted from https://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/heredity/files/An%20Inventory%20of%20My%20Traits_student.pdf)
Overview: Will you be able to identify a person’s race/ethnicity by just looking at their phenotype (physical characteristics like skin color, eye color, hair color, etc...)? Why or why not?
Objectives: • Race is not a genetically meaningful way to group people. •Humans are more alike than they are different. •There is no “race gene” that can distinguish one “race” group from another. • There is more genetic variation within a “race” group than across groups.
Materials: • Tables created within lesson plan • Access to internet
Procedure: In this this interactive activity, you will "sort" 20 people (images provided) into five federally recognized racial categories. You may click on the images to zoom. In the data table below, record the number of images you matched correctly/incorrectly. •Go to- pbs.org/race •Click on “Learn More •Click on “Sorting people” and then “Begin Sorting.” • In a table list the race images as noted, Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, White or American Indian as well as the correct number out of 4 that you received. • Finally, calculate your percentage correct by dividing your total correct by 20. Calculate your percentage correct by dividing your total correct by 20 Once you’ve completed the table, find one member of each “Government Race” who identifies as something else. List what they identify below.
Closure: • List at least 1 observation you made during this portion that surprised or interested you. •Create a bar graph for each table. •Come up with a plausible explanation to explain the results •Describe the relationship between phenotype and race. Can phenotype be used to identify and distinguish races?23